Hi all! A while back I had posted a poll about benign fasciculation syndrome as I have been a sufferer of it for over a year, ever since I had started taking zoloft 50 mg again, and along with that, I had often had strange sensations of labored breathing and "Oxygen starvation" where my chest felt heavy and like I could not get enough oxygen. Well, I just wanted to tell everyone that these can be side effects of medications. I was on zoloft 50 mg for about 13 years. I wanted to stop taking it but the couple times I had tried to quit before (because I weaned improperly and too fast) I had severe withdrawal which resulted in debilitating dizzyness, nausea, extreme weight loss, no appetite, unable to drive, brain zaps, etc. WELL, I thought why did all these strange things start to happen with me over the past year? What happened prior to this? Well, what had happened, was I just stopped taking zoloft and then had a severe withdrawal, then tried lexapro 3 days, had a panic attack, then took zanax, then started back up on the zoloft again... all that within a 2 month timeframe... it was awful. The fasiculations started about 4 weeks after that time period. Well, I noticed that zoloft can cause fasciculatios, twitching, labored breathing. Well, it has been a one full month and I am pleased to report I am down to just 25 mg zoloft, have zero fasciculations, no more labored breathing, I am sleeping great and actually dreaming.. and the best thing is that I got my libido back! That's important after it was non-existant for the entire length of time I was on zoloft which was like 13 years. I think there was a point in time when I was young and it helped me. But then I no longer needed it. I think my body was rejecting it and I believe it was majorly messing up my autonomic system. I feel great! Back to my old self. I plan on tapering off the 25 over the next couple months. I have to taper down extremely slow. So, this is kind of a success story, just to shed some light to other people... if you are experiencing strange stuff... it could just be side effects from different medications you are taking.

Glad you found the source of your discomfort. Side effects can be so unpredictable - I was on zoloft for years, no side effects, switched around for a while, went back on zoloft, suddenly I'm gaining weight all over the place. Go figure.

I've been on zoloft for about 5 years now and have been experiencing lots of twitching that started in my calves and has now become more spread throughout my body. The symptom is very distressing to me so I recently wanted to see if it was related to theZoloft. I cut back from 100 mg to 50 mg for about 4 weeks. I'm so disappointed because the twitching hasn't gotten any better and I've been experiencing a lot more aching and weaknesses throughout my body. I was really hoping I would be able to blame the twitching on the Zoloft to ease my mind off ms and als..... but I've become even more anxious because of the increase in neurological symptoms and no changein the twitching. I'm going back up to 100 tonight!